Dr. Beltran is a physician scientist focused on understanding mechanisms of treatment resistance in advanced prostate cancer. Her lab has developed therapeutic targets and biomarkers for non-androgen receptor driven prostate cancer, including neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), an aggressive subtype of castration resistant prostate cancer. She has led the molecular characterization of NEPC patient tumors. Her team has developed and characterized patient-derived prostate cancer preclinical models including organoids and PDXs. They use these models to understand the mechanisms underlying AR independent prostate cancer, the pathogenesis of NEPC, regulation of cell surface targets including PSMA, and to develop new therapeutic targets.

Dr. Beltran’s group has also developed genomic and epigenetic assays for clinical trials, including a cell free DNA platform that can detect emerging resistance subtypes of castration resistant prostate cancer based on DNA methylation. She leads clinical trials and team science projects that integrate multiple disciplines in order to accelerate translational research, including serving as Correlative Science Chair for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Cooperative Group GU Committee, and institutionally as Co-Director of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center NCI SPORE in Prostate Cancer, Director of the DFCI PROFILE program, Co-Director of the DFCI Center for Cancer Genomics, and Director of Translational Research within Medical Oncology at DFCI.